Question about VPN/Laptop while traveling

[BCGroup]

I travel on business quite regularly (two weeks per month), only in the US. I've been very careful with wifi in the airports and hotel, not visiting sites that relate to finances. However, the more I read, the more it seems that I should only access wifi with a VPN when I'm on the road. I am totally confused as to what I need to do. Should I continue to only check my email and social media and not access my financials while on the road? Or should I always use a VPN? If so, what do I do? Do I buy a service, and if so, any recommendations? I have a Mac Airbook. Thanks in advance for your help.

[cspan37421]

This is a great question and I look forward to reading some informed responses.

When I'm on the road, I have my passwords in a KeePass database that I carry on my person. No login passwords on the laptop* itself. And that particular database is just a subset of my passwords, and it excludes all my banking and investment company logins, as I'm just not on those daily and so there's no need to have them in my travel password database.

I much prefer to be wired in by ethernet cable, but that's getting increasingly hard to find. It's wifi everywhere.

* the laptop happens to be a Dell with Linux pre-installed - acquired in the brief window of time they sold inexpensive ones (now they just have one, developer-level Linux laptop) - and that requires a password to boot as well.

[fuse]

The most difficult aspect of answering this question relates to business policies and personal use.

With the possible exception of international travel, the company I work for indicates no personal use of corporate assets- not surfing the web, gmail, social media, etc.

For me, that makes that decision simple- all VPN, all the time with my business laptop.
If I did personal activity on a work asset, I'd want to not use VPN.
Anything personal I'll do on personal devices- phone, tablet, etc.

Public wifi can be a threat, and should be treated as such- I won't shop, use credit card info, etc on public wifi unless I absolutely need to.

You should use https on public networks whenever possible, or encrypted protocols (not going deep into Heartbleed /OpenSSL here).

Strong password management is also key- minimum 13 characters where you can, a mix of uppercase, lowercase letters, numbers and special characters.

Setting up two factor authentication and leveraging security features that are offered within sites where you can may provide additional levels of protection.

Run antivirus and firewall on your laptop, and use sites like ShieldsUp to validate your expected presence.

If you are reading DBR, using Facebook or Twitter, Netflix, etc there is likely minimal risk.

All the above is a better safe than sorry (maybe mildly paranoid ;-) ) perspective.

[BCGroup]

This is helpful. I am self-employed, so I use my laptop for both personal and business purposes. I haven't been using two step authentication, so I can absolutely start doing that. And I'll revisit all my passwords. Thanks!

[DukeHoo]

Fuse's post is dead-on, so I won't add too much more to it. However, to hammer the point home, I would use a VPN service while traveling. Public Wi-Fi is extremely vulnerable, and is usually unencrypted. I would also make sure that you are logging on to a page via HTTPS, instead of the normal HTTP. There's a great extension called HTTPS Everywhere that sets Chrome to HTTPS by default (located here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/d...npmejbdp?hl=en).

Now, as for specific VPN services, there are a number that should work with a Mac. One choice is CyberGhost (http://www.cyberghostvpn.com/en_us), which is free but has some restrictions (a limited number of connections for free users, combined with a 5 hour time limit). The time limit only requires a new log in. There are also a number of inexpensive options for VPN services, such as Private Internet Access (https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/) at $7/month or 40/year and IP Vanish (http://www.ipvanish.com/) at $10/month or $78/year.

I should note that, if you have an extra computer you don't mind leaving on while on the trip or can set up the router to support it, you can set up your own VPN pretty easily. There are a number of tools such as OpenVPN and LogMeIn Hamachi that allow you to set up your own VPN using your home network. The downside is that this takes a little bit of knowhow.

[Rich]

You might find this article in last Sunday's NY Times helpful: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/09/yo...-accounts.html

[BCGroup]

Thanks for all the helpful information! I decided to go with the VPN service https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/. I'll look forward to seeing how it works on this next trip Sunday.